Waghorn's Resurrection

 Waghorn's Resurrection

Jamie Barnard on how Martyn Waghorn's return to form is like having a new signing for Leicester City...

Reflection and recollection. The annual Remembrance fixture at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium evokes poignant memories of those that have gone before, sacrifices made. Lest we forget.

But stood in silence, encircling whitewash from which an incomparable and insignificant battle will imminently commence, eleven royal blue shirts flutter in the breeze of a crisp November afternoon only chilled further by frosty receptions afforded to ancient foes.

The age-old enemy, Nottingham Forest, back to re-commence hostilities. What was a gulf war last season only in the glaring monetary inequalities created by Leicester City’s free-spending Thai investors, is now evened by the levelling forces of Forest’s wealthy Kuwaiti benefactors the Al Hasawis.

With a poppy embroidered upon his bust and his heart adorning his sleeve, Martyn Waghorn stands as former glory personified. An armistice with injury demons and poor form Waghorn’s newfangled saving grace from a nightmare two years.

With Christmas fast approaching, a glimmer in Waghorn present of Waghorn past.

Not much stood still at Leicester City in the whirlwind two seasons of flux which succeeded Nigel Pearson’s departure from his position as commander-in-chief, but Waghorn well and truly stagnated. Callously discarded by Sven Goran Eriksson as a flurry of strikers were enlisted in his place, Waghorn was shell-shocked. Bednar, Yakubu, Kamara, Beckford. With varying success they came, with varying inevitability they left.

From darling of the terrace to no man’s land, Waghorn went missing in action. One of those peculiar breed, the confidence player, Waghorn needs to be loved. A North-Eastern grafter with that touch of class, Waghorn will give to the cause but craves love in return. However, if adulation were the currency in which Waghorn was dealing, shares plummeted and he was declared bankrupt.

The essence of Waghorn ebbed away.  Paired up front with debutant Jeff Schlupp in a League Cup game against Rotherham, never plainer was Waghorn’s demise than in the stark contrast as chances came and passed him by, whilst Schlupp’s rising star was illuminated with a superb inaugural hat-trick. An untimely and unwelcome ceasefire.

To the Eriksson cause he became a conscientious objector and to be allied with Pearson once more at Hull City offered salvation.

Now such times are but a distant nightmare. His game still bears the marks of post traumatic stress disorder, there endure the scars of his battles, at chances he has snatched and opportunities have been spurned, but to regeneration we are bared. Encouraging displays at Watford and Bolton preceded Waghorn’s remembrance fixture against Forest. A prominent figure in a 2-2 draw in that match, The Last Post was not to sound for Waghorn’s Leicester City career just yet.

But he needed a goal, ‘that goal’, any goal. And fast forward seven days from that draw Waghorn hit the fifth in a six-goal demolition of Ipswich at The King Power Stadium. Relief emanated stadium-wide and the reaction of Waghorn’s joyous team mates displayed an empathetic comprehension of their comrade’s struggles. A spring in his step. Fire in that famished belly. Waghorn was, Waghorn is, back from the dead.

To reclaim that tag of clinical marksman he must now score more. As poppies bloom and shed their seed, so must Waghorn shed the nuances that have halted a career which once looked so potentially glorious. The price of greatness is responsibility and Waghorn must now, by maintaining his scoring touch, shoulder the burden that has too often betrayed Nigel Pearson’s side: an inability to convert their chances.

Of late, bemoaned has been the lack of a new striker amongst Pearson’s troops but, in the air of optimism surrounding the re-emergence of Waghorn, such grumbles will evaporate. Because to have back the Waghorn that lay broken on the wet turf of The Cardiff City Stadium two and a half years ago, on an evening which brought closure to an outstanding season for both Leicester City and Waghorn individually, is akin to having a new signing. Remembered it should be that, in that play-off season, he earned the club’s Young Player of the Year award with twelve league goals.

And if this season is the one for Waghorn to expunge the tyranny of his personal demons, then he will hope to eradicate another of his former torments. Martyn Waghorn has won his personal battle, now he must help Leicester City win the promotion war.

 Credit top and bottom images Alex Hannam via Flickr

Credit middle image hst43077 via Flickr